


Mama is...

by nigiyakapepper



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Backstory, Canon Backstory, Canon Compliant, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Season/Series 05, Season/Series 05 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 10:57:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13925709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigiyakapepper/pseuds/nigiyakapepper
Summary: “A spy!”“Spy!”“Up in space!”“ ’pin space!”Keith is two. It’s one of his good days, judging by the boy shrieking with joy for no other reason than the enjoyment of the act. K, his dad, moves as if to chase him around the sofa in their living room. Little Keith moves in turn, a ‘patta patta’ of tiny feet stomping on linoleum. He giggles while clutching his shirt—then full on screams and toddles away when his dad lunges after him.- -Who Keith's mom is as Keith grows up.





	Mama is...

**Author's Note:**

> more Keith family feels barf! i don't feel comfy giving Keith's dad a name, but it'd be confusing if i don't, so he's the mysterious Mr. K. if anything is confusing, don't hesitate to tell me!

“A spy!”

“Spy!”

“Up in space!”

“ ’pin space!”

Keith is two. It’s one of his good days, judging by the boy shrieking with joy for no other reason than the enjoyment of the act. K - - - - -, his dad, moves as if to chase him around the sofa in their living room. Little Keith moves in turn, a ‘patta patta’ of tiny feet stomping on linoleum. He giggles while clutching his shirt—then full on screams and toddles away when his dad lunges after him.

They both fall onto the play mat, Keith shrieking with laughter in his dad’s arms, halfheartedly fighting to wriggle free. They roll up together, K on his back and Keith on his broad chest.

“A spy up in space makes your mom sound like a Russian villain from the old movies,” he mumbles to himself, looking down at his son and getting a mouthful of hair. “I swear your mother ain’t Russian.”

“No Russian,” Keith parrots back, mischief in his tone, before he scrambles away from his father’s hug to run screaming to the bedroom and back.

K stands with a groan, following his toddler just in case the poor boy runs headfirst into the dresser, or falls over and licks the floor, or god forbid _shoves an entire bar of soap into his mouth_ (how did he even reach that? It was in a box! In the medicine cabinet! Above the bathroom sink!). He’s exhausted, he’s working overtime all week, but his heart feels light. He’ll take this.

He’ll take endless days of laughter and chasing over days when Keith is screaming for an entirely different reason. Over days the boy is drenched in sweat and tears, and screaming himself blue because he’s woken up to find his mother isn’t there. And he’s yelling for her, and for his dad—for anyone to come and tell him they aren’t going to leave him. The first time it happened, K held his son so tight against him he could feel the boy’s chest heaving, breaths loud and shattered in his ear, heartbeat such a frantic rabbit’s pace that K was terrified he’d pass out. K's tears and pleas mirrored his son’s as they waited for the clinician from the nearby daycare center to arrive.

He’ll take this, he thinks, as he leans on the doorway, watching Keith pick up and put down his small collection of toys in arrangements that only make sense to him, before turning, yelling, “Papa!” and barreling into him. He’ll take this, K thinks, and showers Keith’s chubby cheeks with kisses.

\- -

“Busy. Very, very busy”

Keith is four, and one of the last kids to be picked up from daycare. Again. The boy is used to it, and looks like he doesn’t mind it, reading books in the play corner, building block towers to see how high he can go until they fall, eating sliced apples and half a squished tuna sandwich he rationed during lunch in case he gets hungry, napping when he gets bored.

His homeroom teacher, bless her soul, stays behind so he has company and tells K it's alright, Keith’s a good kid and keeps quiet, no, she had a lot of things to do anyway, is his mother not around? It wasn’t clear on his records, sorry if it’s a touchy subject—

K shakes head, all apologetic smiles as he holds Keith’s hand and slings the boy’s small, worn backpack over his shoulder. “It’s complicated…” he says, strained. “She’s very busy.”

“Oh I see,” she says and glances at Keith. The boy stays quiet and looks away.

\- -

“Imaginary!”

“Shut up!”

“She ain’t real!”

“ _Shut up!_ ”

“I heard Ms. Lauren ask the principal ‘does he really not have one?’—“

Keith decks him and recess dissolves into chaos. Keith’s dad is called in, the other boy’s dad is called in. Keith apologizes through grit teeth and a heavy hand on his shoulder; the other boy does the same. When K asks how much to compensate for the kid’s steadily purpling cheek, the father laughs and claps his son on the back. “No worries! Might teach ‘im a good lesson on runnin’ his mouth off!”

Then “What’d you gone do that for?!” is what they hear in the hallway even before the door to the principal’s office clicks shut.

“He didn’ have one so I said he didn’ have one!”

“Oh Austin,” comes a woman’s voice, no doubt the kid’s mother. “She must be one o’ _those_.”

 _Those_ could mean anything, but said in a tone so…pitying that Keith feels his blood boil, but before he can react, his dad’s grip on his shoulder tightens so painfully he has to bite back a yelp. When Keith looks up, his anger dies at the look on his father’s face.

“Sir, I understand if this is a deeply personal matter,” comes Keith’s homeroom teacher’s voice, quick and timid under the impassive gaze of the principal (mildly inconvenienced at her office room being used for this discussion). “But if proper documents aren’t submitted to the school, Keith is going to have a difficult time. Not just now but in the future.”

She wordlessly hands over Keith’s birth certificate, and they go home. K places the piece of paper on their coffee table and fixes Keith a look.

“Tell me what you did, kid.”

Keith makes to protest having to explain himself again but stops. “I already told you. He kept tellin’ everyone Mom didn’ exist and I just…” His body moved before he could think. “I punched him.”

“Did it feel good?”

What? Well, yeah! Keith wanted to say, but the feeling was only in that split second of reeling back and letting go. Right now he feels miserable, and his thumb is hurting so so bad, why couldn’t he have gotten an ice pack before his dad decided to lecture him too? “No…”

His dad nods. “Remember that feeling, kid, before you do anything that could hurt somebody.”

Keith opens his mouth in disbelief and shuts it. He doesn’t know what he feels, only that it’s overwhelming. His breath hitches in his throat. He hates that he starts crying. “I didn’ wanna hurt anybody!”

His dad’s shoulders slump and his gaze softens. He wraps his arms around his son in a hug. “I know, Keith, I know. This isn’t your fault.”

“Mom was…mama’s real, right?” Keith sobs into his dad’s shirt. “I remember…” Being cradled in soft arms, being rocked to sleep by a lilting lullaby he’s never heard anywhere else, playing with bright hair. What he remembers of her voice is more rumble than sound. She smelled of a crisp, cold night, of steel and stars.

“She’s real,” his dad says, holding him tight. “She’s real.”

\- -

“A fighter.”

“What?”

“Your mom was a fighter,” Keith’s dad says a few weeks after the punching incident. “If you’re gonna punch shit—“

“You swore.”

“—and you will too, but not in school, and only when it’s gotta be said, because—“

“—Words are important. I know, dad.”

K sighs, debating the logic of giving an eight year-old a blade, but it’s his son’s, and his own responsibility to teach him not to misuse it. K brings it out from the safe in his bedroom closet, wrapped tightly in cloths not from this Earth, still smelling faintly of ozone—the only thing she left behind.

“This,” he tells his son. “Is yours.”

Keith catches the weight behind his words, and steps forward but doesn’t move to take it. He looks up from the object to his dad. “What is it?”

K feels a smirk tug at his face. “You’ll know when you prove yourself ready for it.”

His boy rolls his eyes. “Dad—”

“—I’m serious,” K says. “This is a knife and it was your mom’s.”

Keith sucks in a breath. His gaze falls once more to the object in his father’s hands, soft awe seeping into his voice. “…It was mom’s?”

“You bet. Now you gonna let me teach you fight or what?”

\- -

“Someone who loves you very much, you know.”

It’s a bad day. Keith’s in one of his moods his father doesn’t know how to handle exactly. He lets the kid spar with him in the empty, cleaned out garage of the mechanic shop where he works until the boy is spent and panting, starfished on the concrete. It doesn’t work as a minute later, Keith curls in on himself and lets out a groan of frustration. His sweat is mixed with exhausted tears.

“Stop, stop acting like you know what she says! She isn’t here! She’s gone!”

His dad sits down beside him. “Don’t mean it can’t be true,” he says gently and easily blocks a halfhearted swing his son aims at him from his position on the floor.

Keith heaves a put upon sigh, as if he weren’t the kid between the two of them, indulging his father’s delusions. “If she loves me so much, why’d she leave, dad? I’m asking!”

The look that crosses his dad’s face is something Keith utterly doesn’t understand. He may only be twelve but he isn’t dumb, nor has his dad (Keith suddenly realizes) made any attempts to hide what he’s been doing.

Years and years of reading and research, marking strange maps on computer and paper, bringing spare parts home from the shop and building all sorts of machinery, radios, engines, a hover bike, taking them out to… _somewhere_ , Keith isn’t sure, but they live on the outskirts of Boulder and there are days his dad comes back home smelling more of sun and desert dust rather than grease and oil. Their humble apartment is sparse but not wanting, it isn’t difficult to imagine his father goes elsewhere to stash his things—things Keith’s pretty sure no other normal mechanic feels the need to do, but his dad’s been driven for as long as he’s known him, driven by a melancholy he’s never seen his dad without, and now that Keith’s older, it looks a lot like someone refusing to give up a long, arduous fight.

His dad said she’d left, but why does it seem like he’s constantly _searching_? If she went missing, why couldn’t they have gone to the police like normal people? Keith doesn’t understand.

“One day,” his dad smiles at him sadly, and something unhappy twists Keith’s insides. “I’ll be brave enough to tell you.”

\- -

“Sorry… I’m so sorry…”

K has seen Krolia do many things—incapacitate sentries and guards without so much as a gasp, take over Galra patrol ships and reroute communications to make it seem like nothing was amiss, hurl a heavy sword one-handed with deadly speed and accuracy at moving targets, decode encryptions without breaking a sweat, land a damaged aircraft filled with frightened Earth engineers caught in intergalactic crossfire safely home…

He’s seen her heal from a life-threatening injury, bear the fuss of a small crew of grateful humans as well as maddening boredom during her recovery time, adapt to living on an unknown planet, with climate, food, and language far removed from her own, build communications to the Marmora base with its primitive technology, fall in love with one of its people, carry their seed to term and give birth, only the iron grip with which she held K’s hand belaying any pain she endured.

He’s seen her cut down enemies with ruthless efficiency and cradle her son as she sang him to sleep with no difference in the intensity and simplicity with which she carried out her tasks. He’s seen her smile, only once, when Keith burbled out his first word and held her finger in his tiny fist.

“We have a difficult time mating,” she had told him one evening, in the orange glow of the campfire—the only light for miles in the forest preserve they had decided to call home. “Successful pregnancies are rare with Galra. It’s why we live long lives.”

He’s seen her proud, happy with a dash of disbelief at seeing their son toddle about, whole and hale. He’s also seen her look to the skies as if helplessly drawn to the stars.

He has never, in the handful of years he’s known her, seen her cry.

They’d been preparing for this day since they (crash)landed on Earth and went into hiding. It had been a Blade mission gone wrong—in a good way, since now, the Marmora were positive Earth should stay away from Galra radar for as long as possible. Communications were wonky, but they held. It was just that somewhere between helping Krolia get back to the skies in thanks for not letting K and his crew dry out in space, and surviving, she saw a glimpse of what it could be like living for something other than the Cause.

_Received word of your health. You are needed for long term infiltration mission. Inform when you are away from cluster B12 and we will send coordinates._

He’s seen her come to one of the most painful decisions she’s made, as they sat staring at the decoded message in the living area of their home. He knows what she’s thinking. The mission is bigger and older than anything else. If she wants to protect her family, she has to leave.

And now he’s seeing her standing in the small room they built for Keith, holding him close to her, quiet tears slipping down her cheeks. Her baby son coos, and she hunches further, as if she can hug him any tighter.

K gives them privacy and goes out to prepare the small speeder for space travel, his own heart cleaving in two.

\- -

“Someone who liked the outdoors.”

“She did?”

“Yeah, come to think of it.”

They’re hiking in the Shoshone, as they’ve come to do almost every summer since Keith was seven. He's thirteen now and while he can’t say he knows the trail like the back of his hand, the mountains are like a second home.

“The first time she saw elk was hilarious.”

“What happened?”

“She didn’t react much, your mom, but she made this face,” K made a face and Keith laughed. “Then just froze.”

“Oh yeah?”

“She absolutely didn’t want to move until the elk went away. Won’t top the first time she caught her first fish, though.”

“You taught mom how to fish?”

“Yeah, she freaked out at first but then she got a taste of fresh fish.”

They spend the afternoon talking, eating packed sandwiches, legs dangling over a cliff. They stay until the sun sets, watching the sky transform from bright blue, to orange, to gold, to deep reds, pinks, purples, to the indigo of a young evening. Keith listens to his dad remember his mother, and feels content.

“I like it out here, too,” he tells his dad as they camp out under the stars. “It’s quiet.”

\- -

“Proud of you,” his dad says and claps him on the shoulder. “Or if she can see you know, she would be.”

“Thanks, dad.”

Keith takes a moment to look back at his old room. It’s been tidied, anything he’d need has been packed away in boxes, ready for the half-day drive to Phoenix. He’s never known any other home outside their humble apartment, and now he’s off to live alone in a boarding school on a two-year fast track course to the Galaxy Garrison. It’s a notoriously difficult program designed to try and get hopefuls in one of the most prestigious military schools in the country. The added challenge is Keith needing to maintaining his full scholarship with good grades and overall performance.

Keith takes a moment to look back at his old man—he’s got a five o’clock shadow, crow’s feet around his eyes, the gash that slices through his right brow he’s never thought to ask the origin off. He wonders what his dad will do once he’s gone; amp up his research? Build deep into the night? Forget to eat? Find a lead and chase it?

He feels a twinge of melancholy and wordlessly moves to hug his dad. He closes his eyes as he hears him chuckle and commits the sound to memory.

“Hey now, none of that yet,” K says. “We got around a day’s drive ahead.”

He nods. They pile into the car and pull out onto the road.

“I know you ain’t gonna be able to come home, maybe not for a long time, but you call home, alright?”

“Yes, dad.”

“Doesn’t gotta be everyday but you just let me know how you are. I know Garrison life’s gonna be tough, so talk to me about it, okay?”

“Dad, I don’t even know if I’m gonna get into the Garrison.”

His father grins and takes one of his hands off the wheel to ruffle his hair. “Oh, you will. I know you can make it.”

Keith’s hard pressed to stop his own smile. He knows his dad’s got a history with the Garrison, but he’s never talked about it and he hasn’t thought to ask. There’s so many things he hasn’t thought to ask. He wonders if a drive is enough for them all.

He’s thirteen, and it’s the last time he sees him.

\- -

“Somewhere out there.”

“Really?”

He’s a second year in the Galaxy Garrison, best friends with seventh year, Shirogane Takashi. They’re eating lunch in the mess hall before they go for flight sim training.

“Dad said she left when I was super young, but he talked about her like he was always waiting for her to be back.”

“That’s pretty cool, and kinda sad,” Shiro says without pity, which Keith appreciates more than he can convey. “You said he was Garrison too, right?”

“He didn’t talk about it,” Keith says. “At first, I thought he had a bad experience but then, now that I think about it, he never stopped reading and researching. Or, I don’t know now…”

“You haven’t talked?”

Keith shakes his head and Shiro understands, Keith’s never heard him talk about family either. They change the subject.

\- -

“Gone,” Keith whispers.

He doesn’t know how far he’s flown. He hardly remembers the flight, only that his gut has led him to this shack out in the middle of nowhere, over several dunes and sheer cliffs, far, far away from the Garrison.

He can still feel the echo of rage with which he took out Iverson’s eye, even if a handful of days have already passed. He feels like he’s been on autopilot the whole time, being expelled, clearing out his room, busting out the hover bike he’s stashed on campus grounds and just…never looking back.

It’s sundown. He’s cold and tired, mind and heart spent, empty and exhausted. Curiosity gets the better part of him for several hours, as he explores, firing up the generator, pleasantly surprised to find running water and electricity. He calms down while he straightens out the place, clearing the kitchen, pounding dust from the couch cushions and looking for usable cutlery, scrubbing the outhouse.

He idly notes that he’s lucky to have found this place, but then rifling through the piles of reference books, notebooks, and maps stashed in boxes and shelves lining the main living area, he realizes why.

Utilitarian notes, drafts and blueprints, penned by a much younger hand, but still unmistakably his dad’s.

He doesn’t know what to feel. Gutted, but also seemingly picked up and dusted off, and it’s up to him to decide where to go from here. He understands, though, all too well what his father possibly felt all those years. It’s _terrible_. It’s a terrible feeling. He wants it out of his body.

He distractedly takes some maps and hangs them on the wall. He opens some textbooks on mechanical engineering and shuts them again. He flips through his dad’s writing and misses him.

He thinks of Shiro, and his mom. He thinks of them gone and his heart weighs so, so much.

He rips off a piece of notebook paper and scribbles on it, _It’s killing me when you’re away._

\- -

Galra.

He wasn’t sure before, but he is now. Somewhat…unless “The only way awakening the blade is possible is if Galra blood runs through your veins” means something else.

He shakes himself, setting aside the thought for later. Now, he has to join Hunk to get scaultrite from a weblum, whatever that is…

\- -

Lowkey panicking.

Ever since Voltron’s arrival, they’ve made undeniable leaps and bounds in overthrowing the empire. Krolia feels triumphant, of course, but she’s mostly relieved. After thousands of decaphoebs, often thankless work, with only a thread of hope to hang onto most days, has finally paid off.

She has an ear out for news, impassive but alert. Zarkon’s death sparked an exodus of commanders toward the Kral Zera to vie for the throne. Ranveig confidently left his base under her supervision, but shortly after Lotor’s ascension, she’s had her hands full defending it from Trugg and Ladnoc.

The last she heard from Kolivan was that a Blade would be sent to help her get out. She doesn't know why but is sure there’s a reason. She suspects it’s because of the superweapon, which she’d rather see destroyed than fall into anyone’s hands. It’s an unstable nightmare that would eviscerate anything it gets its claws on. If the weapon were to be destroyed, she has no more reason to stay on base, and her near fifteen-decaphoeb vigil undercover would be done.

“The Blade’s name is Keith.”

And communications went down before Krolia could even say another word.

Keith? _Keith?_ It’s not a common Galra name. She doesn’t want to think of the last time she heard that name, or spoke that name. She swallows her discomfort with practiced ease and sets about fortifying defenses against Ladnoc’s and Trugg’s heavy fire.

Several vargas later (almost to a quintant), she senses someone scuttling about the ship, and she’s briefly exasperated at the lack of stealth, but at least they’re here. They think she hasn’t spotted them as she enters the main control room and hangs back.

They come out of hiding in their best attempt to tail her—by the ancients, they’re small—and she follows behind.

Whip fast, there’s a blade at her neck as there’s a forehead facing the barrel of her blaster—they’re _really_ small for Galra—but, her eyebrows go up as her eyes travel down the elegant curve of luxite aimed at her.

It’s her blade.

Her heart is beating in her throat. She swallows it down.

“You’re late.”

\- -

Rolling with it. She’s rolling with it.

She’s right about the superweapon, but there’s very little wiggle room when Trugg’s touched down and her sentries have made it inside. They fend them off, barely. Her blade is jammed in a metal corpse and she pulls it free with one easy motion— _oh_ , she’s missed the feel and weight of it in her hands—

“Surrender or die.” Trugg’s voice rings out in the weapon’s holding room. She has her son hostage.

Krolia sighs and sheaths her blade. She’s not going to make this choice again. In fact, there is no choice to make.

“ _What are you doing?!_ ” there’s a rasp to her son’s voice she can’t help but be charmed by.

She fixes him a look and hopes it conveys things. “I left you once. I’ll never leave you again.”

\- -

(So damn proud because her boy can _fly_.)

\- -

Here.

She is here.

He’ll have time to process everything later, once they’re back in Marmora HQ—but _jesus_ , everything makes sense—his dad’s cryptic words, his desperate search, his hope.

“You must have a lot of questions.”

Understatement of the year, mom, Keith thinks. She’s tall—average for Galra. It’s a shock now, to see his own face mirrored in hers, in the slant of her nose and the jut of her chin. Her voice stirs something from the depths of his memory, and he likes the way she speaks in crisp statements.

The lines of her brows are furrowed, almost apologetic if Keith’s being honest. He doesn’t…he doesn’t know where to start. There’s age old pain welling up alongside everything else, but there’s time to process it. They’ll have time process it. _They'll have time._

“This is an Earth thing, but can…can I hug you?”

Krolia’s eyes widen slightly in surprise, but she opens her arms. “Of course,” she says with a look on her face and Keith remembers his dad’s stories. _Gosh_ , they’re both going to be awkward, he almost wants to laugh.

But he melts into her embrace, and she into his. He breathes in the scent of a crisp, cold night, of steel and stars.

“I’m here,” Krolia says, and Keith holds on tighter.

**END**


End file.
